I just discovered HitFilm on Saturday after looking around for an alternative to After Effects. Great app and even greater community. Glad to have found it all!

I'm thinking of using HitFilm for an animated short I'm working on and also for some live action short films in the coming year that will be VFX heavy, so I've been giving the app a test drive over the last few days. This morning I started playing around with effects and decided to see if I could create a cool looking Star Trek shot with the Enterprise encountering a vortex in space.

I created the shot in HitFilm using two still images I found on the web (the space background and the Enterprise) and the built-in effects for the vortex.

I exported that and brought it into Final Cut Pro X for some color correction, an added camera shake and the letterbox. I probably could have done all of that in HitFilm or downloaded Ignite, but I'm very familar with Final Cut for post-work, so I decided to save time and do it that way.

I'm really loving this program. Even more than After Effects, which isn't very intuitive and can be overwhelming.

Since you're a working, paid artist, I will suggest after you familiarize yourself with Express you download the demo of Pro. This will give you access to Hitfilm's most powerful features, and give you the Pro version of Hitfilm Ignite, which adds Hitfilm effects to FCPX. You can download Ignite Express for free which gives you over half the Ignite Pro effects in FCPX. The Pro version also lets you install on three machines, which can be very helpful if you have multiple machines and a deadline.

(BTW Moderators aren't staff, we're volunteer users. The sales pitch ain't corporate, just pointing out options as you're a working pro, not a hobbyists or beginner. )

Now, as you learn Hitfilm there are tons of tutorials online. I always recommend my own YouTube channel, "Hitfilm University. Besides my own tutorials, I have playlists for a lot of other channels, from Hitfilm's official tutorials through the few Film Riot Hitfilm episodes through a couple dozen channels of user tutorials. Hit-U is a good starting place to find (and subscribe to the creator's channels) hundreds of Hitfilm tutorials.

Otherwise you've found what is genuinely one of friendliest, most helpful VFX communities around. If any questions on techniques come up you'll probably get five different solutions from four different users. Enjoy!

I'm working on more. I decided to expand on this shot and create a 2-3 minute short using Star Trek: The Original Series footage and new VFX created in HitFilm Express to tell a new story. I'm almost done and should be able to show it sometime next week.

Never thought I'd see someone from HISHE here! Awesome! Even though I haven't caught up with the episodes yet, I think your stuff is absolutely brilliant. You have a fan here

Also curious to see what you're gonna do next! I hope you're planning to post the Star Trek short. Really exited to see that one. I'm also completely new at HitFilm to be honest, but I'm liking the community so far!

Playing digital matte painter for a shot from the Star Trek short I'm almost done with. Extending and repainting a photo of the model in the Smithsonian for a shot where the nacelles get hit with energy bursts.